Tyler Hamilton was a teammate of banned cyclist Lance Armstrong during 1999, 2000, and 2001 Tour de France where Armstrong won the Yellow jersey. According to the forthcoming book of Hamilton, “The Secret Race”, Armstrong built an elaborate doping program within his Tour de France teams and hid his corruption from the adoring public through intimidation, lies, and sabotage.

Hamilton says: “If you were careful and paid attention, you could dope and be 99% certain that you would not get caught. They’ve got their doctors, and we’ve got ours, and ours are better. Better paid, for sure.”

Tyler Hamilton and Lance Armstrong
Tyler Hamilton and Lance Armstrong were teammates between 1999-2001.

The Secret Race

The cover of Tyler Hamilton The Secret Race
Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle: “The Secret Race”

From amazon.com:

In 2009, Armstrong’s former teammate Tyler Hamilton and writer Daniel Coyle met for dinner at a restaurant in Boulder, Colorado. The two had met five years before while Coyle was writing his bestselling book, Lance Armstrong: Tour de Force. But this time, Tyler had something else on his mind. He finally wanted to come clean, about everything: the doping, the lying, his years as Lance Armstrong’s teammate on U.S. Postal, his decade spent running from the truth. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told Coyle. ‘It just feels so good to be able to talk about this. I’ve been quiet for so many years.’

Over the next eighteen months, Hamilton would tell his story – and his sport’s story – in explosive detail, never sparing himself in the process. In a way, he became as obsessed with telling the truth as he had been with winning the Tour de France just a few years before. The result of this determination is The Secret Race, a book that pulls back the curtain and takes us into the secret world of professional cycling like never before. A world populated by unbelievably driven – and some flawed – characters. A world where the competition used every means to get an edge and the options were stark. A world where it often felt like there was no choice.

Sources

M. Özgür Nevres

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